The Devil Takes Care Of His Own
by somewhere.somethingincredible
Summary: Molly Hooper's life has just returned to something resembling normal. And then she meets Sebastian. Molly/Moran


This fic arose from my realization that there is very little, if any, fics concerning Molly and Moran. I decided I wanted it, and this happened. The rating will likely go up at some point if I can muster my energy and actually write sexual content, but for now it's pretty much 14A. Also, this is set about a year after Sherlock's "death". Enjoy!

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><p>It begins inauspiciously.<p>

Molly is just starting to think that her life is heading in a direction she likes. She loves her job, just moved into a new flat and _adores_ it, and hasn't heard from Sherlock in months. Mycroft assures her he's all right. She actually prefers not hearing from Sherlock directly. For the first few months after his death, he'd texted her constantly, asking for updates on John, and it was a daily reminder of how much her actions were destroying the army doctor.

Now, though, she can concentrate on her own life, and she mostly sleeps through the night.

One dull, overcast Tuesday finds Molly running errands. She has paid bills, done her laundry run and gone to the gym. She's on her way home when she remembers that she needs to get her grandmother's broken emerald necklace out of her safety deposit box. Her Mum has been asking for ages to have it sent down to the local jewellers in Brighton to be fixed, but Molly just hasn't bothered. On Sunday her mother had called and threatened to tell Gran that it had been broken in the first place if Molly didn't send it along immediately. Knowing she'd regret it if she didn't comply, Molly grudgingly gets off the Circle Line train that would get her home and transfers to a Jubilee Line train to her bank.

She grumbles to herself most of the way there. She's sweaty from the gym and still wearing her workout gear, for crying out loud. Her hair is tied up in a ponytail and she's not wearing makeup and all she wants is to go home to her flat and have a bath. She has a date tonight, and she wants as long as possible to prepare for it. The man taking her out seems decent enough: has a steady job, doesn't seem to be a sociopath, smiles a lot. He's a far cry from the last two men she's fancied, and though he seems to be on the wrong side of dull, she could use a little bit of normal in her life.

If only.

The bank is quiet. It's a large establishment, but on a Tuesday at eleven in the morning it's slow. Molly gets up to a teller almost immediately, an ancient, stooped man with wispy hair longer than hers. He's worked there as long as she's been coming to the bank, calls her "Miss Hooper" in his threadbare voice. Reminds her a bit of Dumbledore, actually, strange and geeky as that is, and when he takes her key and leads her to the room full of safety deposit boxes she can't help but feel as though she is being led through Gringotts. The bank itself certainly helps with that impression: it's old and made of white stone, with high ceilings and wooden carrels. He leaves her with the box on the small table in the vault, telling her he will be back in ten minutes to retrieve her.

The necklace is on top. It was the most recent addition, guiltily stashed two years ago when it had gotten caught in her collar of her coat at a party and broken the clasp. Instead of owning up like a big girl, though, Molly had squirreled it away. Her Mum found out a year later and has been pestering Molly ever since.

Molly lifts the piece of antique metal in gentle hands, admiring the way the green gems catch the fluorescent light of the vault and turn it beautiful. It really will be nice to have it fixed, she muses, she does love the old thing. She places it in the envelope that the old teller left for her withdrawals and closes up the safety deposit box. She wonders if it would be alright for her to just go find the teller: she doesn't actually want to wait eight more minutes. Molly has just started for the heavy door of the vault when there is a heavy ratatat from outside that can only be gunfire.

Molly's first, irrational thought is: _Well great, there goes the day_.

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><p>Seb Moran is having a mediocre day. He doesn't really <em>want <em>to be spending his day teaching a bunch of new-ish recruits how to rob a bank (it's an elementary skill, really, if they can't do that they're of no use to him) but it needs to be done sometime, and Tuesday is as good a day as any. So he dresses down for the occasion, jeans and a t-shirt under his well-beaten leather jacket like any other bloke running to the bank on a Tuesday morning, and instructs his men to do the same. There's something inherently off-putting to Seb about the misconception that daytime robberies should be carried out in full gear and helmets. Stupid, dramatic notion perpetuated by films. All Sebastian and his people need are a few backpacks, ski masks shoved in pockets waiting for the right moment when everyone's in position, and some well hidden munitions.

The initial stages of the plan are executed perfectly. They kill the surveillance, round up the predictably snivelling hostages, lock up the bank. Seb has a forceful chat with the manager of the bank, a dumpy woman in a suit that makes her look like she raided Maggie Thatcher's closet. Seb dislikes the thought of Maggie Thatcher on principle, a throwback to his Da's days unemployed when Sebastian was just a kid, so he's a bit snippier with the manager than he needs to be. She cries, little hiccupping sobs that jiggle her bulk and ruddy her nose. Seb has never told anyone, _will_ never tell anyone and nor will he ever let on, but people crying actually does have an effect on him, and not the one people expect. He doesn't revel in making people weep, doesn't take pleasure in reducing another human to tears. It's just that it tilts his otherwise unshakable internal sense of balance off-kilter, an instinctive reaction that he covers up with gruffness and more steel in his voice.

He tells them to open the vault and winces under his balaclava at the sheer sense of _cliché_ that goes along with that pronouncement. A wizened teller who is cowering behind his wicket raises a trembling hand.

"What?" Seb snaps, because Jesus, this isn't a bloody situation where you _raise your hand_ to speak.

"It's already open, sir," the man says in a quavering voice. "There's… there's a patron in there."

"And why is there someone in there unaccompanied?"

"I gave Miss Hooper ten minutes to gather her things from the safety…" The man stops and his eyes go wide. Seb realized his mistake before he did: the man has just told an armed, probably dangerous criminal that there is a probably defenceless young woman alone in the vault. If Seb were anyone else, it would have been a mistake, but Sebastian Moran is _not_ a rapist, thank you very fucking much. He may take a bit too much joy in hearing the pulse of a bullet through flesh, but there are some depths to which he will not stoop.

However, this means there is a hostage unaccounted for, who probably has a mobile phone and is most likely throwing a wrench into his plans. Seb thinks this is as good a time as any to implement the one part of his plan that he didn't tell his accomplices about.

Taking his second-in-command (also known as the least idiotic of his prospects) aside, he explains.

"I'm going to go deal with the girl in the vault," he says, voice low. The other man smiles, wicked; Seb can see it in the crinkle of his eyes. It puts him off. Seb can tell, clearly, what the man is thinking, mostly along the same lines as the aged teller. "From here on in, you're on your own."

"Wh-what?" Seb's clearly thrown the man off.

"Come on: you know the plan inside out. This is your chance to prove you're good enough. Besides, if you fail miserably, no-one can trace it back to me."

"How so? I could give them your name, your description, if we're caught." Seb knows he doesn't intend to follow through on the threat, but he wants to make sure.

Seb smiles under his mask. "What makes you think I gave you my real name?"

As soon as he reaches the back hallway and is out of sight, he pulls off the mask and tosses it behind a desk. In his sweep he'd left a single back door unlocked for his own eventual escape. Might as well take the extra hostage out with him.

He's almost to the vault when a realization stops him in his tracks.

_Hooper. The man had said Miss _Hooper.

Molly Hooper.


End file.
